Someday—maybe one day not too far off—a man who once was super famous for putting a majestic spin on a football might have his memory back. Jim McMahon had another doctor appointment in New York this week, to undergo a fairly new procedure that entails standing up in a body scanning machine rather than lying down like one would in a coffin.

As far as improvements in matters of the brain go, optimism abounds.

Then we have next Monday night’s NFL game, which would be a doozy if it weren’t shadowed by pessimism and dread. The two quarterbacks who are expected to start—Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears, Alex Smith of the San Francisco 49ers—have between them six and possibly eight concussions. Fans with no provincial interest can at least root that neither QB will have his cerebral cortex scrambled.

It may be too late for Michael Vick, who suffered last Sunday what coach Andy Reid admits is a “pretty significant” concussion. By Tuesday afternoon, word out of Philadelphia was that Vick had played his final game with the Eagles, but who knows? Vick has sustained more hits to the head than the Three Stooges combined, and somehow he always ends up back in the huddle.

With three high-profile yet very different quarterbacks all getting concussed last Sunday (along with Buffalo running back Fred Jackson), the NFL players union has predictably resumed shrieking for independent “concussion specialists” to roam the sidelines and determine if players are fit to return after a cranial injury.

It’s a brilliant proposal at first glance. Of course someone with zero team affiliations should be responsible for deciding whether an athlete might best remain on the sideline rather than, for instance, keep playing despite his vision being blurred, which is what happened to the 49ers’ Smith for six plays Sunday after he was leveled by a vicious hit from St. Louis linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar.

An independent neurologist would at least take the onus off coaches like Chicago’s Lovie Smith, who now must explain why he allowed Cutler to remain in Sunday’s game against the Texans for seven plays following a helmet-to-helmet collision from Houston’s Tim Dobbins that rattled the teeth of anyone who witnessed it.

But as with anything involving unions and their voting bodies, conflicts gurgle underneath. For one, tentacles of the NFLPA must wrestle with each other on the gravest issues ever to haunt the sport. Union officials scream about advancing protection for players who are concussed, but they also form a wedge to block punishments against players who deliver those helmet-to-helmet concussion-inducing hits.

For another, while it’s in a player’s best long-term interest to be honest about his symptoms—a day spent with McMahon or any of the other NFL brethren dealing with early onset dementia could cure the hesitancy—a neutral third party can’t squash the current culture.

Back in February of 2011, the NFL breathlessly announced its new sideline concussion assessment protocol. Ask any coach or player or trainer to define it in layman’s terms, with specific anecdotes about what a team must do to clear someone who might be dealing with head trauma, and they’ll refer you to the league manual. It’s easier to decipher a CIA agent’s love circle.

In brevity, the in-game protocol immediately following a suspected concussion involves a symptom checklist, a limited neurological examination and a balance assessment. In the ensuing days an independent neurologist does come aboard, and must clear the player for increasing degrees of physical activity.

It wouldn’t have helped much to have an independent neurologist on the sideline when Alex Smith sustained his first (as far as we know) concussion. That happened a year ago against Dallas, but he didn’t report symptoms until afterward and wasn’t diagnosed until the following afternoon.

Fourteen months later, Smith isn’t inclined to lean on the side of self-awareness. Maybe he’s too caught up in the moment, as he was when he completed a 14-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter of Sunday's tie against the Rams despite everything around him being a hazy, fuzzy dream.

Or maybe Smith would rather tough it out, despite everything we continue to discover about brain injuries and their lasting, devastating impact. It’s impossible to know what’s going on in the heads of other people—until, that is, a high-tech machine reveals images of grey matter in techno-glow colors, and by then it may be too late.

“What he expressed was he came up from the sneak and he had blurred vision, and he felt that it would go away. He came over to the sideline and sat down and felt it would go away, and it didn't. He told me he had blurred vision, and that's when we made the move,” Niners coach Jim Harbaugh said Monday, of his decision to pull Smith.

Harbaugh isn’t sure how many concussions he had in his 15-year NFL career at quarterback. Multiple, numerous, probably too many. Now he must peer into the blurry eyes of his QB and decide whether he’s telling the truth. That’s a heavy load for any coach.

On a rainy Chicago night, the decision was removed from the hands of Lovie Smith at halftime, after Cutler failed the diagnostic concussion protocol in the locker room. The nature of those tests is unclear, which is how the league prefers it.

What we do know, through Smith’s own words, is that the NFL circles the bubble of science and technology when it comes to reacting immediately. After being laid out flat on his back by Dobbins, with the play being reviewed, Chicago trainers examined Cutler on the sideline. But until someone invents an MRI that can be administered on the spot, and in just minutes, it’s impossible for old-fashioned techniques to fully diagnose the human brain.

“It's not like he showed symptoms but we had a break in between,” Smith said, defending the club’s handling of Cutler. “Our trainers talked to him, evaluated him, he was fine from there. Players in the huddle didn’t see anything wrong with him, at the time. Not just then, we just continued to talk to him all the way out, even through to halftime.”

Smith, the trainers and team physicians had to know that Cutler’s past is riddled with hits to the brain. Before Sunday his concussion number was at least three dating back to college, though other reports suggest this was the sixth of his career. He nonetheless attempted to convince Bears coaches that he could continue playing, and wound up taking seven more snaps before the halftime horn mercifully came to his rescue.

“If you look at his play, it’s not like he was light on his feet or starry eyed, anything like that. We felt he was in control of everything, just like the rest of our players, at the time,” Smith said.

If athletes can’t be trusted to be honest about their own health, why should the onus fall on the coach or team doctors? But if those athletes are playing through a fog, barely cognizant of maybe their own name and somehow willing their minds to focus on the immediate task, whose responsibility is it to protect them?

An autonomous brain expert patrolling the sidelines is a start. A union that recognizes players can tackle and hit just fine without using their bodies as missiles would definitely curb the hypocrisy.

For now, both Cutler and Smith are listed as questionable for Monday’s game in San Francisco. Both need to pass neurological and psychological tests during the week, and then be cleared by team doctors and the independent neurological consultant. Imagine the mood swings bookies and fantasy players will suffer in the days ahead as they nibble on their nails, waiting to see if either quarterback’s brain will be determined healthy enough for yet another game.

And while you’re at it, give a thought to one of the wildest gunslingers of them all, the erstwhile raging punk QB of the Bears who this week was scheduled for another visit in Manhattan with Dr. Raymond Damadian, the legendary researcher who pioneered the invention of the first MRI.

A few weeks ago, McMahon spoke hopefully of the stand-up MRI, a fresh procedure that might alleviate some of the blockage in his neck area. He has good days and bad, typical of the effects of early onset dementia brought on by at least four concussions and more hits than anyone could ever know.

If the treatment works, McMahon told reporters, “My memory should come back. I am very excited.”

Pardon the glumness, but in years to come, I do wonder who else will be enthusiastically awaiting an appointment with a stand-up MRI, or whatever other innovation has come along to ease cerebral fluid from backing up into the brain.